Calef Brown is my go-to kids book recommendation. Best for kids 3-5, where the child is not reading on their own, but will enjoy having smart material read to them.
For kids aged 3 to 6, you should get Atlas Shrugged.
How about some not-too-heavy topical nonfiction with a leftwing bent. That Debt, the first 5000 years book is just what I'm looking for, but some more titles.
(I have come to the belated realization that the fact that my parents do not interact with each other means that I can get them exactly the same thing for Christmas. Score.)
I have to get my dad some history books. I may put the Debt book in the pile.
Amazon seems to think I want to know all about the War of 1812.
Heebie, I recommend the "Magic Tree House" books. Their content is basically innocuous, they give kids some idea of the sweep of history, and since they're an interminably long series you can always buy another one.
I learned how to play chess by playing against a computer, over and over, until I beat it. Once. I haven't played much since.
I would recommend Battlechess, for the Amiga, circa 1988.
For a long time Amazon thought I was a lesbian.
7: We read those. I think they are really dull but the boy does like them.
_How Not to Play Chess_
This seems silly. I already know how not to play chess. I'm not playing chess right now!
For littler kids, Don't Call Me Little Bunny.
7: I think I took you up on that last year year.
Kids' ages which are older than my own are all a confusing blur.
I think The Giving Tree is the stupidest book ever written for children.
An appropriate chess book is a difficult recommendation without more information, because "beginner" really covers a tremendously large range of ability. I'm assuming you don't mean truly beginner beginner (as in, you don't want an explanation of legal moves). But how good is he? Can he beat the two of you (who are admitted nonplayers)? Can he beat a computer that is set to a relatively weak play level? (How weak?)
No opening books.
Silman's Reassess is intermediate instruction, but I would get a 12-yr-old something above his current level.
Does he have a computer program with database? If so he can run through some classics.
Nothing like Fischer or Zurich analysis is too deep and too narrow, all Sicilians and King's Indians
A big ole anthology, with a lot of 19th century games, a lot of variety, and lighter annotation
Mammoth Book by Burgess is available for 0.85 at Amazon. Something like that
Somebody should write Why Not to Play Chess
Can he beat a computer program that's set to a relatively high skill level (but isn't a very good program), so "novice" players (by formal standards, so these are people who are pretty decent chess players by man-on-the-street standards) can easily beat it?
Bob's suggestion of an annotated book of professional games is a great idea if he's any good at all. But not if he wants a basic primer on strategy and tactics, etc.
I think this is a very good book for a total novice (by which I mean, someone who knows how to play but isn't very good). It has a chapter covering basic moves but quickly moves into strategy and tactics, etc., and is written with a much more engaging style than many similar books. Reading it can help a beginning player improve substantially. But anyone who is already and half-decent will learn nothing.
The book in 20 is also a nice soft introduction to "reading" chess games in the standard notation. For someone unfamiliar with that, it would be a good step before diving into a book of annotated games, which can be confusing/hard to follow until you get used to it.
Oh, also recommend X-Box games without ultraviolence. The kids want one, and we're caving.
(And that's the first of a four-part series. I haven't read the others, but they're presumably at least slightly more advanced, so if he liked that one he could pick up one of the others. Or whatever else he wants, really.)
3
How about some not-too-heavy topical nonfiction with a leftwing bent. That Debt, the first 5000 years book is just what I'm looking for, but some more titles
I thought we had concluded that Debt was written by an idiot.
Hey, another bleg:
What about psychadelic-ish cartoons aimed at kids, along the lines of Elephants On Parade, Heffalumps and Woozles, or Fantasia? I really enjoy watching that kind of thing with Hawaiian Punch.
Bought a $10 copy of the latest Chessmaster software, but then set it aside because it was too complicated for my then-six-year-old son. He taught it to himself, though.
It's got some very good training modules. One of these days, I'm going to take a serious look at them myself.
I thought we had concluded that Debt was written by an idiot.
Well, yes, but his leftwing bent makes up for it. It's like you never even read this blog.
No opening books.
I'm having to rethink this myself. I always like to improvise openings, but my now-9-year-old son wipes the floor with me on openings. It's embarrassing.
Chessmaster, by the way, has an extensive collection of historical games. Not sure how well annotated they are.
How about some not-too-heavy topical nonfiction with a leftwing bent.
Terry Eagleton, Why Marx Was Right is
Banaji's Theory as History:Modes of Exploitation just won a Marxist Pulitzer or something.
As someone who was into chess as a kid I would think twice about encouraging an interest. The value of spending a lot of time and effort learning something completely useless seems dubious to me in retrospect.
25: Is she old enough for Phineas and Ferb yet? It has its psychedelic moments.
There was a beginner's chess book I greatly enjoyed as a kid - translated from Russian, not dryly instructing but containing a fairly-intelligently-written story of some kids learning chess from an adult, starting with the rules but progressing fairly quickly (in keeping with Russian expectations). I forget the title, though, and it looked pretty old even then. I'll try to find out. Hopefully the fact that I never progressed in chess doesn't count against it.
The Disney Alice in Wonderland is pretty demented, HG. And then you're priming her for the book.
22: Sports games and car/boat racing games?
Has anybody here read Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow? If so, is it too dry to give as a gift to somebody who isn't in that field at all?
31: Is it good? Some people who annoy me like it, so I'd discounted it.
33: Oooh, good idea. I do like that one.
30: Some people would suggest that the sort of analytical thinking involved in playing chess is a transferable skill and so playing it is not completely useless. I suppose it depends on what the alternative would be. If instead of learning about chess he will be studying computer programming or financial modeling, then I suppose that might end up having more practical utility. If instead he would be watching cartoons or huffing paint, I think the chess would be a superior use of his time.
Are there songs in Alice In Wonderland? I feel like there are, but I can't remember.
As someone who was into chess as a kid I would think twice about encouraging an interest. The value of spending a lot of time and effort learning something completely useless seems dubious to me in retrospect.
You feel a misspent youth?
38: I don't know. When I was a child I was pretty friendless and did logic puzzles all the time, and I just got ridiculously frustrated that situations in life pretty much never boil down to "Johnny, who doesn't own the zebra, which also isn't the pet of the boy who had cupcakes on his birthday, likes games with round balls."
I particularly like the cartoons with some choreography to them.
The value of spending a lot of time and effort learning something completely useless seems dubious to me in retrospect.
One who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Also a waste of my childhood: spelling bees. Fucking spelling bees. It's like my parents realized I was kind of good at a lot of things that were sure to make me isolated and miserable, and then said, from now on, you do nothing else. So many horrible nights up drilling fucking spelling words, all for a couple of stupid trophies and even fewer friends.
I am not sure what part of 38 42 is "I don't know"ing.
46: The possibility that logic games and chess and shit like that are transferable skills. I think they might be helpful for computer programming, but IRL they encourage a really antisocial worldview. I don't necessarily think being antisocial is as bad as all that, but it's hard on kids. When I was throwing myself into stuff like that it was a definitely a symptom of having a troubled worldview.
Let me clarify: forcing your children to endure horrible nights up practicing any pointless and supposedly recreational activity (whether chess or spelling bees or logic puzzles or piano lessons or dungeons & dragons) is terrible. If your child appears overly-obsessed with any pointless and supposedly recreational activity, you might even consider encouraging them to spend at least part of their time socializing with other people instead of focusing quite so much on that activity. But all that seems fairly significantly different from not buying a chess book for your interested kid (/nephew) because you don't want to 'encourage their interest'.
I'm going to be irritated if this side topic derails the gift thread.
47 is hard for me to follow. Logic games can be escapism, and people who seek escapism sometimes are having trouble in life, but you're claiming there's a causation going the other way?
48: Didn't mean to! No, of course it's fine to buy a kid a book on something he's interested in. I just had the kind of parents who take every little talent and try to turn you into a prodigy over it. Not that anyone would do that nowadays.
35: It's on my kindle for the ungodly amount of travel I have to do this holiday season. I'm kind of hoping it's a little dry.
I'm also going to be reading Debt and something about ancient Egypt and also 1491. I seriously have a shitload of traveling, much of it sitting on my ass in airports. Kindle is my only hope of arriving sane.
One book I can recommend against is The Emperor of All Maladies which is about cancer and efforts to treat it. Not only is it not very well written, it will also destroy your faith in the medical profession. Plus lots of people die in it, and not in exciting tolchoked by axes ways either.
50: to clarify, 48.last wasn't actually directed at you. I was feeling irritated with myself, for my response to 30.
49: I think it sort of feeds itself. I'm backing out of this conversation though so we can recommend more things to buy.
I got a bottle of Bushmills single malt for my birthday a couple months ago. I highly recommend this as a gift, although maybe not for the 3-5 set.
A child who grows up watching cartoons and huffing paint will at least be well socialized, in the sense that they know how to interact with their peers and enjoy doing so.
I've been reading She-Hulk. I'm not proud.
I'd recommend _How to Think Ahead in Chess_, by Reinfeld & Horowitz
http://www.amazon.com/How-Think-Ahead-Chess-Techniques/dp/0671211382
Got me onto my high-school chess team, waybackwhen.
As to the utility of chess for youngsters, it does teach planning and concentration, and a teenager is probably better off as a chess nut than a doper.
I got a chess set for my 9th Christmas. 'Twas hard, as a youngster, finding competition in that era. Have heard that 'chess over the Internet' is common, might look into finding a beginner-friendly website for your youngster.
Happy Holidays!
51.3: It might read better if one takes it as a study of the cult of the closest thing Americans have to a god of death.
60: Apparently, the iconography is vivid.
She-Hulk sounds good for children. It shows them that women can be high-powered lawyers.
45 53
I think it sort of feeds itself. ...
I agree with this. The chess world is full of unpleasant people and it's not clear this is just because it attracts them (as opposed to creates them).
I just had the kind of parents who take every little talent and try to turn you into a prodigy over it.
Our kids are still young enough that we haven't had to deal much with this yet, but I can already tell it's going to be a struggle for us, figuring out how to address exactly how much encouragment (or how many mandates or orders, if any) to give on these sort of things. As a general matter, I can tell my wife and I are sort of standoffish on these things, prefering just to let kids explore their interests as they see fit. Mostly because of so many horror stories like AWB's. (My wife's aren't a bad but are similar.) But, at the same time, I do wonder if we shouldn't be offering some encouragment or direction. I got basically none as a kid, and as a result did basically nothing. I don't really think that was ideal. Kids are fickle and not especially rational. If they decide one week they no longer want to do acticity x (which they've always seemed to enjoy previously), should we just let them stop? Encourage them to keep at it for a bit and see if they like it again? I don't really know.
I initially thought 60 referred to 58.
This seems silly. I already know how not to play chess. I'm not playing chess right now!
No, what you already know is not how not to play chess but how to not play chess.
Oi likes me iconography borin', guvna.
The chess world is full of unpleasant people and it's not clear this is just because it attracts them (as opposed to creates them).
The world creates unpleasant people, unless you know something about space travel we don't.
The chess world is full of unpleasant people....
Distinguishing it from which world or worlds, precisely?
She-Hulk sounds good for children. It shows them that women can be high-powered lawyers.
Not being a Marvel zombie, I haven't followed this, but I believe that the last few series have characterized She-Hulk as, in the words of Patrick O'Brian' Stephen Maturin, "generous with her favors and universally kind," which might not be appropriate for littler kids for, inter alia, parent-interrogating reasons.
64 -- My self-disciplined wife cannot understand how she ended up with dreamy procrastinators as children: if only we'd forced them stick to this or that activity.
But, at the same time, I do wonder if we shouldn't be offering some encouragment or direction. I got basically none as a kid, and as a result did basically nothing. I don't really think that was ideal.
This is a real thing. I'm not in favor of pressuring kids, but it really is hard for them to explore interests other than watching YouTube videos without the kind of parental support that gets close to pressuring. Sally's on a kind-of high-powered swim team these days (bringing up the rear, she's a good swimmer but no prodigy) with a shitload of practicing. And we have a whole elaborate and annoying system to transport her to practice, and I nag her about skipping practice (i.e., "You don't have to be on the team, but if you're on the team you have to show up.") and so on.
If I weren't being actively involved and supportive, she wouldn't be on a swim team. And so many things are like that.
36: Is it good? Some people who annoy me like it, so I'd discounted it.
Yes. Its the only one of the the shows my kid currently watches that I actually enjoy.
How about some not-too-heavy topical nonfiction with a leftwing bent.
Imagined Communities is a pretty brisk read. Although I'm not sure to what extent it's considered outdated now.
My parents probably should have forced me to go outside more often.
69
Distinguishing it from which world or worlds, precisely?
In a relative sense.
I think I got a lot more useful skill out of choral singing and theater than any isolated activity. Both of those groups in high school were extremely disciplined, and focused completely on excellence rather than competing in any way. Everything about the habits of the group on Glee make me insane with rage. They never practice, they're obsessed with winning, they each want to be "stars," they have no interest in music history or theory; how is this even a choir of any kind? I missed way too much school for choir, and got some poor grades because of it, but it was a good trade-off, and as an adult I'm fantastic at working in concentrated, consensus-oriented groups.
Heebie, I am not recalling if the "more adult" parts are such that you would not want to have a 3-yr old watch it, but Allegro non Troppo has some amusing parts and basically has much of the same structure as Fantasia.
And seasonally topical, this version of the Nutcracker was a favorite of my kids (and ours)--based on the Pacific Northwest Ballet's production. We only had a VHS tape, but now apparently available via Amazon instant video.
73.2: Not outdated, I don't think. Taken for granted maybe.
Everything about the habits of the group on Glee make me insane with rage.
Verisimilitude is an idol of decadent times.
My school didn't have choral singing, but we did musicals. When you have my kind of talent and they're staging The Sound of Music, you get to be a Nazi.
80: Maybe that's why they chose to do it, "We've got the perfect Nazi soldier #3!"
82: And Cabaret was deemed a little much.
My System by Aron Nimzowitsch. It's a true classic by one of the all time greats. It starts out with very simple ideas so the first third would be readable by even a beginner, but an expert would still have a lot to learn from the rest of the book.
Also the annotated games section has the single most amazing game of chess I've ever seen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal_Zugzwang_Game
3: Hacker and Pierson's Winner-Take-All Politics.
nth-ing the recommendation for 1491, it's great.
This thread is potentially dangerous: I spend way too much time recommending books anyway, and these final projects aren't going to grade themselves...
82: I was Herr Zeller, the Gauleiter. I almost had to learn how to say Anschluss but then I realized nobody else knew how to say it so I only needed to get close.
This is a great book. Great. Oddly, however, this is a terrible book.
Phineas and Ferb is really good, but the way it handles the girl characters bothers me. The older sister is the villain for being a teenage girl, and the younger girls, while not too bad as characters, are strictly confined to the role of supporting characters.
I would probably let my son watch it (he's too young now), but I'm conflicted about letting my daughter watch it. It wouldn't bother me if we didn't live a shitty world where everything is super-sexist. Lately I've been letting her watch House of Mouse, which while not nearly as good, at least gives the girl characters more agency.
Actually, if anyone has any TV or movie recommendations for a 6 year old girl that won't make me want to punch the world in the face, that would be great. (We bought her Toy Story 2 recently, which I remembered being completely innocuous, but I forgot about the fucking Barbies and how they're supposed to be sexy.)
87 was me. The forgetful Nazi who couldn't fill in his pseud or catch a man who was running away with seven children in tow.
Christ, Cosma, haven't you heard about grade inflation? Everyone gets an A. You're happy, they're happy, everyone wins.
88 is true.
I'm trying to remember this name of this fantastic chess book which was just a bunch of games but with way way more detailed annotation than usual.
90: And a governess, dead weight if ever there was.*
* Forgive me, Julie Andrews.
Logical Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev. Absolutely fantastic book.
I enjoyed Fred Reinfeld's 1001 books. They're just a bunch of "here's a position find the best move" but they're realistic interesting positions not contrived "chess puzzles." No exposition, no need to know names of moves, just lots of little "find the right move." For someone less interested in strategy and more interested in just playing that might be better.
But I'd say Logical Chess first, then My System second, and then the 1001 books third, of the books that I liked as a teenager.
If you like thriller/crime books I can recommend pretty much anything Edward Bunker ever wrote. His autobiography (Education of A Felon) is also fascinating. The writing is gritty and intense (Bunker was a career criminal who became a writer). Besides the autobiography I think his best two books are No Beast So Fierce and Dog Eat Dog. Animal Factory was also made into a movie and it's good but it's an extra grim prison book.
94 is a great book, but if I'm remembing correctly it might be a difficult read for a beginner.
|| Flip, please send me an email. I need your advice on something. |>
If you learn to knit last February, you'll be able to make people some fairly nice gifts by now. That's all I got.
I only end up getting a couple of gifts for people every year. Friends have told me that Christmas, even if you're not some imaginary suburban family invented for the purpose of bemoaning American consumerism, turns into this orgy of spending, like one friend told me she spent $800! I'm sort of relieved that secular holiday time is more low key than that.
I liked the Silman chess book mentioned above, also Larry Evans' New Ideas in Chess.
The DK illustrated books about cool topics (trains, ancient Egypt, space, insects) are pretty nice for adults too.
Magic Treehouse for 6 year-olds that read well.
Nerf guns are really fun if you're willing to be juvenile, new model that shoots disks is supposedly more accurate than the dart shooters.
Some WB cartoons-- Duck Amok, the operatic ones, one Froggy Evening, are genuine masterpieces.
JK Galbraith's book about the crash of 1929 is good, topical. Huizinga's Autumn of the Middle Ages is good but not topical.
The She-Hulk I've been reading is full of sex and dubious sexual politics. At first I was trying to give a feminist reading/defense of it in my head, but the whole thing became a lot more fun when I decided to admit I was reading trash.
She just got married! But her husband is some kind of warewolf! And she may only be in love because her client in a sexual harassment suit was a superhero from Titan whose power involves making people fall in love with him and each other!
Realizing how many chess books I've read, I'm suddently feeling self-conscious about the fact that I'm such a terrible chess player. I used to be better (although never very good).
was a superhero from Titan whose power involves making people fall in love with him and each other
You mean Eros, Thanos's brother, right?
If a 12 year old is actually very into chess, he's only going to be an actual "beginner" for a few months. Something aimed at the intermediate level, like "Logical Chess" or "My System" might be a bit difficult at first, but it's going to be something that's they'll be able to come back to for years. Something actually aimed at beginners (say who don't know what pins/skewers/forks are, or that rooks should go on open files) is only going to be read once and hence should be a library book and not a gift.
102: There's no shame, I read a lot of books and was never that good either. (Peaked out around 1450ish, though that was based on my club rating, I didn't play enough tournaments to have an accurate real rating.) Bughouse on the other hand, I was a damn fine bughouse player for a while.
99: mr. smearcase, I'm afraid I have something even more alarming to tell you than that one friend had, that time.
I don't disagree with 104, but I also think that someone who doesn't know what pins/skewers/forks are, or that rooks should go on open files, may end up discouraged or confused trying to slog through "Logical Chess" or "My System", whereas after a few months with a more introductory work they'd be much more comfortable tackling those.
Shorter me: see comment 15.
Dammit, now I'm getting concerned on this kid's behalf. M/tch: post the kids address. I will send him the right books.
I like chess puzzles and ought to like chess, but HATE LOSING with such a supreme passion that I have never been able to play enough to become good. I would have to lose a hundred games to my husband before I won one. it's better for our relationship we just do logic puzzles together. I am the sorest loser that ever sulked away from a chess game after knocking her king over in the fashion of a spoiled 6-year-old. it's ok losing in games of chance, I don't mind, where there's some element of randomness; chess, I just feel like our brains fought and yours won. you fucking bastard.
89. Babe Pig in the City has a couple of scary bits but is brilliant.
There's a family story about how my father took my mother's last remaining knight, and taunted her that she was now "sans horsey." She knocked the board over and they never played again. Surprisingly, the marriage lasted another two bitter, cold decades.
For non-violent Xbox games, Beautiful Katamari is good and surprisingly fun. I have the series for the PS family and like it a lot.
Alameida is the anti-me. I've never given a shit about winning at games, although I do quite like playing them. My wife started beating me at chess really quickly after I taught her how to play. She is more in the alameida sulky loser mode, so I may be subconsciously opting for an easy life.
As usual, for actual beginners it's hard to beat wikipedia.
112: Learning to lose gracefully at Scrabble, EVERY SINGLE TIME, allowed me to stay married for many years. Getting laid off and not immediately finding another job is what finally did me in.
Pro tip: learn just to resign! Playing a losing position in chess to the bitter end is absolutely no fun at all. (Especially if there's any taunting involved in the slow death.) Most games should end in resignation by one side or the other! Checkmate should be rare!
Once it's clear that you've got a losing position, just resign. And then you can play again. Or go watch tv, whatever. This approach is usually much, much less frustrating for the losing party (especially a losing party who is competitive).
Is "kicking the chess board over" how one signals a resignation?
Oh, also recommend X-Box games without ultraviolence
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim is not lacking in the violence but has enough story-telling, puzzles, and faux history/social politics to make up for it, I think. Then again, one of the subplots that you can follow involves becoming an assassin, and you end up blood-spattered fairly frequently. But it's really, really fun, even for this video-game challenged commenter.
On 1491 -- definitely a good synthesis read (though not without parts that make me grit my teeth). If it's already been read, Mann has just come out with a new one, too - 1493. I haven't read it so I can't vouch, but assuming it's of the same quality as 1491 I bet it'll be good.
I grew up on the works of Reuben Fine, which cover a lot of aspects of chess from a mid-twentieth century perspective. "Chess the Easy Way" covers the whole game, summarizing the principles that are spread over several of his longer books. However, the notation used is the older descriptive notation (1. P-K4) rather than the more modern algebraic (1. e4), which almost all books, newspaper columns, etc. use these days, and some of the advice may be a bit dated.
You know, an Audubon membership might well be the right thing for some kids. I can't say that I know a whole lot of people in the bird game, but I'll just generalize wildly from those I do know (thus ex recto), and say that they'll generally be a more interesting and congenial class of people than the chess geeks.
That's probably true, Charley, based on my encounters. But, the membership is heavily skewed towards the retired (but generally really nice and friendly and who lead interesting lives), with some super cool non-retired outdoorsy people/'real' scientists mixed in, so said young person has to be pretty comfortable with older people.
Mrs y has a chess technique where she's not actually very good, but is very hard to beat. This is because in the dysfunctional childhood environment she grew up in she was expected to play competent (at chess) adults a lot, and she hated being teased for losing. So she developed an impenetrable defensive game which enabled her to draw as often as not because she was never going to beat the bastards.
106: I have a great idea! Let's all say what we spend on holiday presents!
This comment is dedicated to Mr. Sifu Tweety.
Our family has a drawing with a price limit of $83 because my sister has a strange sense of humor.
When I was a child I was pretty friendless and did logic puzzles all the time, and I just got ridiculously frustrated that situations in life pretty much never boil down to "Johnny, who doesn't own the zebra, which also isn't the pet of the boy who had cupcakes on his birthday, likes games with round balls."
I love those logic puzzles and I still do them, but I'm not friendless. I mean, you're all my friends, right?
This comment is dedicated to Mr. Sifu Tweety.
Sigh. Still feel stupid about participating in that.
Phineas and Ferb is really good, but the way it handles the girl characters bothers me. The older sister is the villain for being a teenage girl, and the younger girls, while not too bad as characters, are strictly confined to the role of supporting characters.
This is exactly correct. Also, each of the girls is primarily motivated by swooning over one of the boys, except for the older sister who is motivated half the time by swooning and half the time by villainously trying to thwart two boys.
I found the Hunger Games series to be a good read for my daughter, and I enjoyed it as well. It reminded me of the Heinlein jouvies I used to like, but with a female protagonist.
The possibility that logic games and chess and shit like that are transferable skills. I think they might be helpful for computer programming, but IRL they encourage a really antisocial worldview. I don't necessarily think being antisocial is as bad as all that, but it's hard on kids.
I am, in fact, generally pretty antisocial, but I am still friends today with people I played chess with in high school 35 years ago. When we get together, sometimes we play chess.
My biggest social butterfly friend from those days has since gotten middlin' serious about chess, and beats me regularly now. He's still a social butterfly.
In my professional life, I have been occasionally accused of being creative. This always surprises me, because I consider myself something of a plodder. But I realize now that what other people describe as creativity simply involves thinking a few step ahead and coming up with an unexpected solution. Is that a skill I learned playing chess? Or merely a skill that I already had and applied to chess. I don't know.
As to the utility of chess for youngsters, it does teach planning and concentration, and a teenager is probably better off as a chess nut than a doper.
But you don't have to choose!
Let me clarify: forcing your children to endure horrible nights up practicing any pointless and supposedly recreational activity ... is terrible.
The Missus, for reasons that are unclear to me, is really pushing my son into chess. (She doesn't play herself.) But the kid likes it a lot, so it's all cool.
I think a kiddo could get pretty far into learning about the birds, and finding some, before contact with the geezers.
116 is indeed a pro tip
Patzers should never resign! The other patzer will blunder away his 15 point piece advantage. And patzers are clueless in endgames and will accidentally stalemate you.
Yeah, Fine's good, Chernev is good, Reinfield is good. Nunn.
I actually was leafing thru my Pachman and Semi-Slav books. No more. Fucking addictions.
132: Sure, but I'm not sure how that fits with an Audubon membership - the main reason to join is to support their field trips (in my neck of the woods, at any rate). But everyone should look at birds!
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim is not lacking in the violence but has enough story-telling, puzzles, and faux history/social politics to make up for it, I think.
If by "puzzles" you mean "Look for pictures on wall, rotate pillars to match pictures", sure. Also, it has graphic, bloody decapitations. It may not be ultra-violent by modern standards, but it's still pretty damn violent.
How old are your kids, LB? And how violent do you consider ultra-violent?
My suggestions without knowing, and playing safe on the violence front:
Child of Eden (beautiful, trippy music-based arcade shooter - it's OK, you're "shooting" visual representations of computer viruses)
Portal 2 (possibly get Portal first - it's part of The Orange Box): amazing first person puzzler with some of the best storytelling in video games. Arguably my favourite game of all time.
Rock Band 3: Play along to music with plastic instruments. The hardware's relatively cheap now, but be prepared to buy a lot of tracks (I think I've bought about £200 worth)
Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise: Raise a garden of animals made of candy. Force them to breed. Whack them with a shovel to bend them to your will. It's the creepiest, most delightful children's game ever.
Sports games - this year's FIFA is excellent, if they're into soccer. Otherwise Madden, NHL, NBA 2K12 or whatever.
Racing games - Forza 4 is an excellent, but rather dry racer. On the more arcadey side, you might try Dirt 3 or Pure.
Pinball FX 2 (on XBLA) - superb pinball game with loads of tables available (you have to pay for them separately though at maybe $2-$4 a table)
Bastion (XBLA) - beautiful, thoughtful action RPG-lite. Somewhat violent, but certainly not ultra-violent. It's E10+ from the ESRB, probably because of the references to alcohol.
XBox games: Portal 2 has an XBox 360 version, and is quite good. There's some violence directed *at* the player, but I wouldn't really call it a violent game.
135.2: Yeah, I wasn't trying to minimize the violence. It doesn't have complicated puzzles but requires plenty of reasoning, etc.
(For me. I'm not a video game player, really.)
|| I didn't see this when it came out. I blame bob. |>
134 -- Rallying point and monthly reminder.
140: Gotcha. I think in some areas they also do run children's programs.
135: And how violent do you consider ultra-violent?
I start getting queasy at weapons fire directed at recognizably human targets, and get queasier the more realistic the animation.
142: No Skyrim then, for sure.
142: We only do games where everybody has been rendered in Lego.
I should finish Portal. I got stuck on a level and never got back to it.
Braid is fantastic (though he should have hired a real writer like he hired a real artist), nonviolent, and available on Xbox live.
I start getting queasy at weapons fire directed at recognizably human targets,
What if the targets are Nazis?
Plus, Hitler was more machine than man.
144: My son is basically all about Lego, Star Wars, and Lego Star Wars, and the Wii is no exception.
Oh, Mr. Blandings, can you send me an email as well? I need to talk with someone about Italian wines.
Not exactly OT:
Is amazon broken? Why won't it sell me books?!
What musical act that's playing a show in NYC sometime next year, and for which tickets are already on sale, should I buy gift-tickets to see? Probably indie rock, unless it's not indie rock but still a good idea.
151: Did you try organizing a union at it?
153: I thought it would be a good idea. can it tell?
After minimal research, Wild Flag or Magnetic Fields in April, Andrew Bird/Tift Merritt in May. Wild card: Glen Campbell at Town Hall in January.
Thanks for all the recommendations! I'll have to find out more about the nephew's current skill level and then make a decision based on that.
Also, Charlie, I don't know what info you're looking for, but if you're in the market for a really nice Italian white, this is great stuff.
Sell what you have and give it to the poor.
Thanks for all the recommendations! I'll have to find out more about the nephew's current skill level and then make a decision based on that.
No, no, no. 30, 88.1 and 94. Those are the only three books you should be considering. And you're done. Done. Drop 30 if he already knows what he's doing and drop 94 if he doesn't.
If I've already sold what I have, how can I give it to the poor?
Actually I guess there are other good suggestions in the thread, now that I'm looking back.
I don't feel like 158 was a good faith response to 157.
71. Balance. Nag the dreamers and the sluggish into activity in some way that doesn't make the particular kid crazy, restrain the overthorough alphabetizer, coax the solitary out into groups....
My youngest likes to organize things. His "games" all mostly consist of lining his toys up in neat rows. "Daddy, let's play with my toy vikings!" means "let's get them out of the drawer and line them up in columns". It's weird.
This seemed relevant when I started typing it, but I no longer remember why.
I feel like if you have neurotic but successful children, it might suck for them but at least you've got a good shot at them providing for you in your old age, thus allowing you to spend more money now on things like fancy restaurants. It's inculcating the right balance of guilt, neurosis, and drive for achievement in the children that's the key.
Where can I buy a set of toy vikings?
A website I get by Googling "toy vikings" is this, which seems super creepy and isn't what I'm looking for:
So, you and your growing family 'play' Norse personae? Naturally, you have your feasting gear just right and a beautiful Viking tent to sleep in over Festival. Your children are perfect little replicas of Norse infancy.... except for the plastic dolls and Tonka trucks. Oops. Well, we can do something about that. There is plenty of information about the toys used by medieval children in general, and any of these items would probably look much nicer than the plastic monstrosities. However, we can still go one better - actual Viking toys do exist, and it may surprise you to learn just how simple they are to reproduce. Absolute purists may find the range a little limited, but with some extrapolation, creating a hoard of Norse toys is completely possible.
165. You're not objecting or anything, but standing by a puddle, stream, or lake with a stick and a pile of rocks and being left alone for bit might be an alternative. Then add a second friendly kid.
The freaky Swedish axe people make reproduction medieval axes.
Thanks Blandings. Also looking, after doing my own research, at Of Montreal in March, though that's not technically on sale yet, so doesn't meet all of my criteria. It does go on sale tomorrow.
I'm not sure I understand 170, but if you're suggesting I should "accidentally" drown him, I think that's a bit much.
No, trying to say that playing by the water is not intrusive to kids who like structure and is a counterbalance to the rules they like.
Throwing sticks off of a bridge is still one of my favorites.
I still like that also. The bridge near my house goes over a road, not a river.
30: The value of spending a lot of time and effort learning something completely useless seems dubious to me in retrospect.
Again, it's like you've never even read this blog.
I'm sure I've been pwned on that hours ago, but whevs.
In terms of book recommendations: if you want to support translated fiction, you could get a subscription to Open Letter Books--six for $50, or 12 for $100. If you're in the EU, you could try And Other Stories (4 for £35) or Peirene Press (3 for £25). I bought an AOS sub for my sister; we'll see how she likes it.
I'd be able to recommend them more wholeheartedly if they also gave you free ebook copies, but alas, no.
Chess is totally useful in real life.
Aqueduct Press is another small publisher worth supporting (their mission: "Bringing challenging feminist science fiction to the demanding reader")--and they do have DRM-free ebooks. Redwood and Wildfire is supposed to be good, but I haven't yet read it, so can't give any personal endorsement. Dangerous Spaces is a very solid short-story collection.
One book I'm now reading: Game of Kings, by Michael Weinreb. Subtitle is: A Year Among the Geeks, Oddballs, and Geniuses Who Make Up America's Top High School Chess Team. Focuses on the teacher who built a chess powerhouse at Edward R. Murrow high school in Brooklyn (hence the pun in the title), with the help of a bunch of kids who immigrated from the former Soviet Union. Might be interesting and inspirational, as opposed to all the how-to books we've been recommending above.
I like chess puzzles and ought to like chess, but HATE LOSING with such a supreme passion that I have never been able to play enough to become good. ... it's ok losing in games of chance, I don't mind, where there's some element of randomness; chess, I just feel like our brains fought and yours won. you fucking bastard.
Oh, yeah. This is me, too. I also hate all word games--most especially scrabble--for the same reason. The best example of this was my first and second years of college, when I turned my roommate from a former competitive body-builder into a total computer gaming nerd and fellow CPU overclocker-and-reseller. It was all great so long as I was winning, but once he started regularly sniping me with his ridiculous railgun skills from gameworld-miles away in Quake 3, over and over again, I was all, screw you guys, I'm going home and basically gave up on computer games forever. (Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Or wouldn't have been, if that time had been subsequently dedicated to productive endeavors. Which it wasn't. Oops.)
I like chess puzzles and ought to like chess, but HATE LOSING with such a supreme passion that I have never been able to play enough to become good
I'm tempted to say that I grok this, but it's not entirely true. I quit, or never tried very hard to play, both chess and bridge because my fellow players were assholes in the aftermath: somehow they didn't see it as a game, but rather a dominance game or some such. No! I decided to stop playing. (Actually, truth be told, chess never interested me very much, though I'm not sure why, since it meets all the basic criteria. People seemed to think it was interesting to break away from a party to play chess over in the corner; the game would revolve through each successive winner, with a new challenger; I wasn't getting why competitive parties were interesting.)
upthread, urple suggested resigning; I don't find that helpful. should I just tip my king over at the start then? only ever learn openings? if you play chess with someone much better than you, the point at which you realize the game is lost is, right when you're setting up! they don't even have to be very good at all, just noteicably better than you. agreed you don't have to limp around the empty board endlessly, but otherwise, unhelpful. also, what if your opponent screws up, absent-mindedly?
109: I just feel like our brains fought and yours won
I'm pretty much the suck at chess (at least compared to where my vanity would have me), but I know enough to assess my position and this and 182 are exactly right. The only time I played a few games with a semi-decent player I was struck how after nearly every single fucking move his advantage had advanced somewhat, like confronting some inhuman crushing soulless thing--death itself without the good parts. That more chess players aren't throttled by their overmatched opponents is a testament to something or other.
Hmmm ... that was not intentional.
Mark Vonnegut has a good description of an intense chess game in The Eden Express.
My chess board was made by my grandfather, Doc. Inscribed in Gothic script were the messages "I do warn you well" on one side and "It is no child's play" on the other. Ominous, ominous, ominous.
[R]egularly sniping me with his ridiculous railgun skills from gameworld-miles away in Quake 3....
I had some fun with the AWP sniper rifle when I used to play Counter-Strike a lot. Good times, good times.
A good lefty book that was pretty interesting but a bit dry in parts is Bernard Harcourt's The Illusion of Free Markets. A critique of neoliberalism via legal theory and history, with many interesting detours.
My siblings and I draw names for Christmas gifts these days, and it turns out this year one brother and I drew each other. He just sent me an email suggesting that, in the interest of efficiency, we both just forget about it. I want to answer that as a leftist I have values other than efficiency. On the other hand, he's kinda right.
J. Wald/fogel: "The Deadweight Loss of Christmas," American Economic Review, 1993.
Price of everything, value of nothing, yadda yadda yadda.
188: Some distant great-aunt and uncle of mine apparently gave each other $100 every Christmas. My grandfather would chide them, "Why be cheap? Make it a thousand." They presumably had their game-theoretic reasons.
My father and his twin brother used to give each other half a crown (roughly 60c in those days) on their birthday when they were lads. It was the same coin every year. My dad would get it out of a drawer and give it to my uncle, saying "Happy birthday"; and my uncle would hand it back with the same wishes.
Throwing sticks off of a bridge is still one of my favorites.
I spent pretty much all of last weekend in the Hundred Acre Wood.
The way for two players of wildly different abilities to play and still have a competitive match is for the better player to give odds (i.e. with the handicap of starting without one or more pieces). Before rating systems odds were an important part of competitive chess: Philidor "played the vast majority of his games at odds".
if you play chess with someone much better than you
Oh, well then yes, this is the problem. I didn't realize you were quite so outmatched. That's no fun for either party (unless the better party is a sadist, or the weaker party a masochist). Playing with someone much better is only worthwhile if you're deliberately trying to learn from the experience (and even then, probably only if the better party is consciously cooperating in your learning process).
Although handicaps like 192 work well. Let him start with no rooks, and see how things go from there.
Some distant great-aunt and uncle of mine apparently gave each other $100 every Christmas. My grandfather would chide them, "Why be cheap? Make it a thousand." They presumably had their game-theoretic reasons.
Liquidity vs solvency.
I've always wanted to try a few variants of standard chess--infochess and where each player scrambles her first rank.
